The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for capturing and gathering personal photographic images that take place at different times and at diverse geographic locations.
With the advent of the camcorder and VCR, the making of home video movies has replaced to a great extent, the taking of still photographs of events or activities that one wishes to remember. However, if traveling with friends or family, one person, usually the host or parent, not only has extra baggage to carry in the form of a camera, batteries and supplies, but he or she spends a great amount of time taking movies of the other members of the family, and the various attractions that the group visited. This, of course, detracts from the pleasure of the event for the person operating the camcorder, in that a great part of the activities of interest are seen through the viewfinder of the camcorder. Also, when visiting tourist attractions, with the camcorder exposed and ready to capture a photo opportunity, there is an increased risk of damage and theft for the camcorder. Additionally, the video cameraman of the group seldom has the opportunity of being included in scenes of the movies. Finally, the movie itself, although treasured for its remembrance value, in most instances does not reach a level approaching professionalism, because all scenes are usually shot at the same angle with the camera being the same distance from the ground. Also, an unsteady camcorder, too fast panning, poor focus, and poor lighting detract from the final product.
With a still image camera, the same type of inconvenience results. Namely, one of the parties being absent from a majority of the pictures, a constant imposition upon strangers to take pictures of the group, or a threat of loss or theft of the photographic equipment. In light of the foregoing, there is a need for an improved personal photo gathering system and method that overcomes the disadvantages of taking your own photographs while visiting a particular activity.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a system and method for capturing and gathering personal photographic images to substantially obviate one or more of the problems due to limitations of the related art. Although the present invention has a wide range of applications, it is particularly suitable for amusement or theme parks having many different attractions, and will be described in that connection.
Additional features of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives of the invention will be realized and attained by the product and the apparatus and method for making the product particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.
To achieve these features and in accordance with the purpose of the invention, as embodied and broadly described, systems consistent with the invention gather a collection of personal photographic images on a recording medium, the collection having a plurality of personal photographic images, each including a customer in a field of view, a plurality of environ images, each including a field of view lacking the customer, and a plurality of text images, each including text in a field of view. Such systems include: a registration unit responsive to inputs of a customer to store distinctive data, said distinctive data including customer identification and data for selecting the plurality of environ and text segments; a photographic image collection subsystem including a plurality of cameras and customer detectors, each of the plurality of cameras positioned geographically spaced from one another and oriented to capture, when activated, one of the plurality of personal images, each of the plurality of customer detectors being associated with one of the plurality of cameras and responsive to the distinctive data to generate an activation signal and a customer identification signal; an environ image storage module storing a plurality of environ images; a text generator; a personal storage module; a master controller governed by the registration module to store one of the plurality of personal photographic images along with customer identification into the personal storage module in response to the activation and identification signal; an assembly and processing module responsive to the master controller to assemble stored environ images, stored personal images, and generated text in accordance with the activities of the customer subsequent to the entry of information in the registration unit; and a personal production unit for permanently recording the plurality of personal photographic images on the recording medium.
In still another aspect, a method of producing a plurality of personal photographic image collections concomitantly, wherein each of the personal photographic image collections include a plurality of personal photographic images, a plurality of environ images, and text. The method comprising the steps of: storing in a registration unit the identity of a plurality of individual customers together with text and environ images of separately recorded fields of view selected by each of the plurality of individual customers; triggering concomitantly a plurality of cameras to capture images of the plurality of individual customers at geographically diverse locations; transmitting each of the captured images of the plurality of individual customers to a personal storage unit to store personal photographic images of a plurality of different customers; repeating the steps of triggering and transmitting to store a plurality of personal photographic images of the same individual customers and different individual customers; selecting environ segments displaying weather conditions corresponding to weather conditions existing at the time of recording associated personal segments; interleaving text and selected environ images between the plurality of personal segments, having the same identification data, to form for each customer a personal photographic collection having assembled personal, environ and text images upon completion of recording of personal images of one identified customer; and duplicating concomitantly on each of a plurality of recording mediums the assembled interleaved personal images of respective individual customer to provide a still image collection to each of the plurality of individual customers.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.